Bathing

Uploaded 03/30/2010

UGH! Bathing is such a hassle! Who was the idiot who invented it? I mean, you have to get undressed, turn on water and wait while the water heats up. Then, after after you've waited for the water to heat up, you step in and its too hot! So now you're scolded and have ninth degree burns and you're supposed to be getting clean but it's hard to get clean when your flesh is peeling off and pustules filled with the sweet nectar of human suffering begin forming all over your blistered and ravaged naked body. And then, when you finally do get the water down to a reasonable warmth you slowly begin to realize just how vulnerable you are in your nakedness and that at any given moment a wayward burly gay black man could bust through your front door, race up to your shower and anally pummel you so that you will be crapping blood for months. And after pondering that terrifying possibility for what seemed like seconds but was really many minutes you find that you've exhausted all your hot water and are standing there, shivering with a case of hypothermia setting in but with absolutely no cleaning accomplished whatsoever. Then you finagle with the water thing hoping there's just a little bit more hot water left, and right when you lose hope more scolding hot water pours out and you scream in agony, crying and waving your fist angrily in the air at everyone and no one all at once. The water eventually gets back to a normal, semi-comfortable temperature, and as you enjoy the blanket of warmth that has overtaken you, you begin thinking once again, but this time philosophically. You begin wondering about the ins and outs of the human mind, and what we really are in this world, and what the worldwide implications of a giant loofah shortage would be, when once again the water has gotten cold as even more minutes have passed as you pondered the complexities of this crazy world in which we live. You've been through an arctic shower before, so you're prepared for it and know how to handle it, but now you have to pee. You vowed to never pee in the shower again, but you really really have to go and can't get out because you forgot to grab a towel and you'll get the bathroom floor all wet. So you tilt your head back, close your eyes, and enjoy the gentle relief of your bladder's contents being evacuated all over the shower floor. Then, enveloped in the feeling of contentment you get only after releasing a bladder full of kidney Kool Aid, you reach for the soap and prepare to clean your body, but it slips from your grasps and falls into a puddle of freshly leaked urine that had not yet been washed away by the artificial rain sprinkling from your shower head. But its your only bar of soap and you have to use it so you pick it up and wash your body and then wash your hair with surprisingly few complications, except that someone pulled the classic gag of replacing the DAMN shampoo with DAMN honey. REAL GODDAMN FUNNY ISNT IT?! Then you've finished bathing in that torture chamber euphemistically known as a "shower", and you go to get dressed but slip as you're getting out of the shower and land on your behind, quite certain you've fractured your tailbone. But like the trooper that you are, you get up and put your clothes on and leave that bathroom, swearing to yourself that you will never return again. And I have not returned. I have not bathed in fourteen weeks. I've been told my bathing abstinence will cause me to smell and that it will lose me friends, but the way I figure it is, it will be a real friendship test. Real friends will stick with me through everything, even through my "smell." Apparently I have no real friends. But anyway. I don't personally notice any sort of smell, though I think my dog sort of did, considering it died around week 11. And so did my cat. And my rabbit. And my houseplants. And my self respect. So, I know it's crazy, but what I'm trying to say here is, bathing sucks!